Erma Bonaderohas been chosen to
serve as a member of the Harris County Drug Court Foundation’s Board of
Directors. Established in 2003 and granted 501(c)(3)
status in 2006, the organization’s mission is to: (1) provide financial support
to the Harris County’s STAR (Success Through Addiction Recovery) felony drug
court program; and (2) raise awareness in the community about the life-saving,
fiscally responsible activities of the STAR program. The Foundation’s board and
staff are all volunteers and proceeds go directly to STAR for recovery support
services and treatment. Each semester during the regular school year, Professor
Bonadero organizes a field trip for her students to
observe a STAR Drug Court docket. Students leave the courtroom that day with a
better understanding of alternative courts, and are also inspired by the
clients’ successes they are able to witness. The Board of Directors is
currently seeking a few additional members. If this is a cause that you’d like
to get behind, please contact Erma for more information (713-822-2717; ecbonade@central.uh.edu).

Zachary Bray presented an article called “The New
Progressive Property and the Low-Income Housing Conflict” at the Law &
Society Conference, on a panel discussion called “Ownership: With, For, and Against Others.” The article will be published
by the BYU Law Review in the
fall. Professor Bray also moderated a panel called “Exceptionalism
in Administrative Law” at the same conference. Also in June, Professor Bray spoke
on a panel called “Notes from the First Years” at the AALS New Professors Conference
in Washington, D.C., and he also co-chaired the Property Small Group panel
discussions at that same conference.

Aaron Bruhl’s recent Cornell Law Review article on statutory
interpretation in the lower courts (“Hierarchy and Heterogeneity: How to Read a
Statute in a Lower Court”) has been reprinted in condensed form at The Legal
Workshop, http://legalworkshop.org/.

Seth Chandler delivered two talks at University
College London as part of the 11th International Mathematica
Symposium. His main talk was "Machine Learning Judicial Behavior
Using a Mathematica to Weka
Interface," in which he develops a process whereby the result of past,
current and future Supreme Court case can be predicted (imperfectly) using any
panel of justices since 1946. His second talk, "A Look At Power in
the American Electoral College: Applied Intermediate Mathematica,"
showed users with an intermediate level of facility in the Mathematica
language how the program might be used and interfaces developed to understand
our constitutional system of electing a president.

Geoffrey Hoffman attended the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement roundtable meeting here in Houston on June 21, 2012. Director
Morton spoke, as well as the ICE Public Advocate, and U.S. Representative
Sheila Jackson Lee, about implementation of the new deferred action policy for
certain young people who fit the strict criteria. Professor Hoffman’s law
review article, co-authored with SushamModi, appeared in Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring 2012) of The Journal of Gender, Race and Justice
at the University of Iowa. The article is part of a symposium on the War on
Terror and is entitled “The War on Terror as a Metaphor for Immigration
Regulation: A Critical View of a Distorted Debate.” On June 25, Professor
Hoffman was interviewed for a piece on KUHF discussing the Arizona v. United
States ruling by the Supreme Court.Professor Hoffman was interviewed by Susan Carroll of the Houston Chronicle on the same date. On
June 15, Professor Hoffman gave an interview on air during the 92.1 newscast
concerning President Obama’s new policy of deferred action for certain young
people. Professor Hoffman’s interview on the recent Supreme Court decision, Arizona v. U.S., is available on the
KUHF website at: http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/1340665787-Houston-Reacts-To-Supreme-Court-Ruling-On-Immigration.html.

Sapna Kumar passed the United States Patent and
Trademark Office Registration Examination, more commonly known as the Patent
Bar. She is now eligible to apply to become a registered patent attorney.
Professor Kumar also traveled to Washington D.C. to help run the AALS Workshop
for New Law Teachers and the Workshop for Pretenured
People of Color, as part of her responsibilities for the organizing committee.
At the New Law Teachers Workshop, she led small group discussions for new
administrative law and constitutional law professors.

Jim Lawrence will be serving as the Communications
Expert for the ABA/NITA Family Law Trial Training Institute held July 14-21 in
Boulder, CO. Also, Professor Lawrence will be presenting at the 2012 American
Institute of CPA’s Expert Witness Skills Workshop held July 26-28 at the Swisshotel in Chicago, IL

Jessica Mantel spoke at the American Society of Law,
Medicine and Ethic's Annual Health Law Professors Conference on June 8.
Professor Mantel’s presentation discussed the extent to which health care
providers are forming accountable care organizations
in response to market pressures and changes in Medicare reimbursement policies.

Michael A. Olivas, in response to President Obama’s new
prosecutorial discretion policy, published Obama's New Immigration Policy:
Disappointment Is in the Details, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 18, 2012,
http://chronicle.com/article/Obamas-New-Immigration/132377
; and Michael A. Olivas, Dreams Deferred: Deferred Action, Prosecutorial
Discretion, and the Vexing Case(s) of DREAM Act Students (UHLC/IHELG Monograph
No.12-01) http://www.law.uh.edu/ihelg/monograph/12-01.pdf,
which will appear in the William and Mary
Bill of Rights Law Journal. His book review of Maria Chavez,Everyday Injustice: Latino Professionals and
Racism, will
appear in The Review of Higher Education
(2012).

Jordan Paust’s essay in Jurist, “The States are
Unavoidably Bound by International Law,” was replied to in Jurist by Professor
David Moore, and Professor Paust has responded to the reply: http://jurist.org/forum/2012/07/jordan-paust-moore-reply.php.
The fourth edition of Paust, Bassiouni, et al., International
Criminal Law as well as the new Documents Supplement has been sent to the
publisher.

Ben Sheppard’s article titled “Fortress U.S.A.: Two
Troublesome Defenses against the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral
Awards in the United States,” based upon his presentation at the Fordham Law
School Conference on International Arbitration and Mediation, appeared in Contemporary Issues in International
Arbitration and Mediation (MartinusNijoff). Professor Sheppard moderated a program on
cross-examination in international arbitration at the spring meeting of the ABA
Section on International Law in New York on April 19, 2012. Also,
Professor Sheppard presented an overview of developments in international
commercial arbitration at the annual Houston Bar Association ADR section spring
meeting on May 4, 2012. Finally, Professor Sheppard participated as a speaker
at the roundtable discussion at the 24th annual arbitration workshop
of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration on June 22, 2012.

Spencer Simons attended and chaired a meeting of a
subcommittee of the AALS Committee on Libraries and Technology in Washington,
D.C. on June 14. The subcommittee, of which Professor Simons is Chair, is
advising the AALS on revisions to bylaws and executive committee regulations
regarding the law library.

Barbara Stadlerwas
appointed to the State Bar Committee on Legal Services to the Poor in Civil
Matters.

Jacqueline Weaver lectured in and directed an Advanced
Legal Training course offered to 14 attorneys from Petrobras,
the national oil company of Brazil. The course addressed selected topics,
such as LNG contracts, gas and power contracts, international petroleum
contracts, maritime cargo and collision, and a full day of tax from Bret Wells. Tracy Hester also presented an update on US environmental law. The
group toured the Houston Ship Channel on a boat in the record heat wave and
ozone levels.

Bret Wells published his article “Territorial
Tax Reform: Homeless Income is the Achilles Heel,” in the Houston Business and Tax Law Journal (12 Hous.
Bus. & Tax. L. J. 1 (2012)).Professor Wells also taught a one-day tax
course as part of the Advanced Legal Training Program hosted by the Law Center
for fifteen Petrobras attorneys.

Stephen Zamora hosted a series of events related to
the launch of the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law, the Law Center’s newest
research institute which he directs on June 1. The events included a
lecture by Mexican Supreme Court Justice José Ramón CossíoDíaz, who has been named Distinguished Jurist in
Residence; and a lecture by Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States,
Arturo Sarukhan, on “Mexico-U.S. Relations in 2012:
Challenges and Opportunities.” The Advisory Board of the Center also held
its inaugural meetings. The Center for U.S. and Mexican Law is the first
research center in the United States devoted to the study of Mexican law, and
of legal aspects of U.S. – Mexico Relations. Information on the new Center
and on the events are at http://www.law.uh.edu/mexican-law.